MOBY DICK;

OR,

The Whale

WU TSANG

FEB 14–16, 2024 MCA

WU TSANG MOBY DICK; or, The Whale 2 3

Moby-Dick, written in 1851 by Herman Melville, recounts the voyage of the Pequod, a whaling ship that embarks from Nantucket, Massachusetts, and sails throughout the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans in search of an albino whale named Moby Dick. Narrated by Ishmael, a mariner aboard the ship, the story is fueled by the vengeful and increasingly maniacal desire of the Pequod’s captain, Ahab, to kill the white whale, which claimed his leg during a past expedition.

MOBY DICK; or, The Whale, directed by Wu Tsang (b. 1982, Worcester, MA; lives in Zürich, Switzerland) and written by Sophia Al Maria, adapts Melville’s canonical novel into a predominately silent, feature-length film, animated by a live orchestral score composed by Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee with Asma Maroof and performed at the MCA by the Chicago Sinfonietta.

Tsang’s film generally adheres to Melville’s original plot while accentuating key elements that continue to resonate with our understanding of culture today. Informed by historian C. L. R.

James’s postcolonial reading of Moby-Dick, the film sifts through what Tsang describes as the “messy politics” of Melville’s text, scrutinizing the imperial impulses that drive his characters to hunt

MOBY DICK; or, The Whale

WU TSANG 4 MOBY DICK; or, The Whale 3

whales, traverse oceans, and obsessively map their surroundings.1 MOBY DICK; or, The Whale also pays particular attention to the social life of the crew, taking inspiration from maritime historical accounts of sailors from different countries congregating on ships, which at the time were rare spaces of cultural exchange and revolutionary politics.2 Presenting scenes of tender embrace between mariners and sensual sequences of sailors handling viscous whale blubber, the film draws out queer dynamics between crewmates alluded to in the novel, linking the production to many of Tsang’s earlier works that similarly bring submerged queer and trans narratives to the surface. As it approaches its conclusion, Tsang’s film increasingly turns to abstraction as a strategy to indicate the limits of empirical knowledge, exemplified by the inconceivable depth of the ocean, the persistent unknowability of the white whale, and the incomprehensible scale of colonialism and capitalism—systems at the heart of Melville’s novel.

Since its premiere at the Schauspielhaus Zürich in 2022, MOBY DICK; or, The Whale has been presented in several cities across the United States, Europe, and Australia—a tour that feels all too fitting for a film anchored by the subject of travel across oceans.

As the Midwest premiere venue for this project, the MCA is thrilled to bring Tsang’s film to Chicago, a city by the water with a rich maritime history of its own.

Nolan Jimbo

Assistant Curator

1.

The specific text that informed Tsang’s project was C. L. R. James, Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways:

The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In (Hanover: Dartmouth College, 2001); “Wu

Tsang – interview | Madrid | 21 February 2023,” Studio International, accessed December 10, 2023.

2.

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the

Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013).

BILLING

Directed by:

WU TSANG

Written by:

SOPHIA AL MARIA

Original Score by: CAROLINE SHAW and ANDREW YEE with ASMA MAROOF

Produced by:

LAURA D’INCAU

Coproduced by:

WU TSANG Executive Producers:

DAVID CODIKOW, NADJA RANGEL Associate Producers:

TOSH BASCO, SOPHIA AL MARIA

STEFAN SCHEUERMANN,

BARBARA HIGGS Cinematography by:

ANTONIO CISNEROS Movement Direction by:

TOSH BASCO Choreography by:

JOSH JOHNSON Costumes by:

TELFAR X KYLE LUU

Production Design by:

NINA MADER Virtual Production by:

BILD STUDIOS Video Design by:

FRAY STUDIO Edited by:

JÉRÔME PESNEL Dramaturgs:

KATINKA DEECKE, JOSHUA WICKE

PERFORMERS

Titilayo Adebayo André Atangana Tosh Basco Vincent Basse Maja Beckmann Karim Boumjimar Gottfried Breitfuss Thelma Buabeng Enantios Dromos Timon Essoungou Mel Guesson Josh Johnson Rene Melliger

Wiebke Mollenhauer Fred Moten Sebastian Rudolph Daniel Kweku Schmid Stéphanie Scholl Corey Scott-Gilbert Sscopeta Shephard

Malik Sievi Rafal Skoczek Steven Sowah Ondrej Vidlar Thomas Wodianka

CHICAGO SINFONIETTA

FIRST VIOLIN Carol Dylan James Sanders Caroline Slack

SECOND VIOLIN Emily Nash Karla Galva Edith Yokley

VIOLA Seth Pae Becky Coffman Scott Dowd

CELLO

Ann Griffin Edward Kelsey Moore Andrew Snow Lindsey Sharpe

BASS

Christian Dillingham Brenda Donati

CONDUCTOR:

Juliano Dutra Aniceto, Chicago Sinfonietta Freeman Conducting Fellow

WU TSANG MOBY DICK; or, The Whale 5 6

IMAGE CREDITS

COVER: MOBY DICK; or, The Whale (2022), directed by Wu Tsang, produced by Schauspielhaus Zürich. © Design Pics Inc / Alamy Stock Footage. INSIDE COVER: MOBY DICK; or, The Whale (2022), Dir. Wu Tsang, Prod.

Schauspielhaus Zürich. PAGE 4 (all images): MOBY DICK; or, The Whale (2022), Dir. Wu Tsang, Prod.

Schauspielhaus Zürich. ABOVE: Production still (Tosh Basco as Queequeg), MOBY DICK; or, The Whale (2022), directed by Wu Tsang, produced by Schauspielhaus Zürich. Photo by Greg Amgwerd.

MCA

MUSEUM OF

CONTEMPORARY ART

CHICAGO

The MCA’s presentation of MOBY DICK; or, The Whale is organized by Nolan Jimbo, Assistant Curator.

Moved by the Motion Presents: MOBY DICK; or, The Whale A Production of Schauspielhaus Zürich Lead support of the MCA’s presentation of MOBY DICK; or, The Whale is generously provided by R. H. Defares.

Co-Commissioned by LUMA Foundation, Superblue, TBA21– Academy, HARTWIG

ART FOUNDATION, The Shed, DE SINGEL and The Whitney Museum of American Art

For more information about the program, including details about the artists, their work, and funding, please scan.

For more information and upcoming performances and programs, visit: mcachicago.org/ events

REPRODUCTION Unauthorized recording and reproduction of a performance are prohibited.

Schauspielhaus Zürich

Feb 14, 2024 | 7–9 pm Performance + Artist Talk

Feb 15, 2024 | 7–8:30 pm Performance

Feb 16, 2024 | 7–8:30 pm Performance (Audio Description + CART Captioning)

SCHEDULE